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Articles

The rush for land in Africa: Resource grabbing or green revolution?

Pages 159-177 | Published online: 24 Apr 2013
 

Abstract

The article details features and implications of the global land rush, with particular focus on Africa. Data and analyses of the ‘Land Matrix’ project help to provide an overview of these land-based investments, while locally implemented case studies in the framework of the ‘Commercial Pressures on Land’ project facilitate the assessment of implications related (or not) to the question of Africa's green revolution. By emphasising the need to go beyond the land acquisition phenomenon and its direct consequences, it re-contextualises the rush for land and relates it to broader dynamics of agrarian transformation in Africa. While the present rush for land may represent a revitalisation of Africa's agricultural sector, it is doubtful that this revolution benefits the continent overall.

Notes

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4. Green revolution here refers to policies intended to increase agricultural yields to address food insecurity issues, specifically, and not to the general campaign to address climate change and other environmental degradation effects.

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45. In this particular case, and in other examples where access to water is one of the key drivers of transnational land acquisitions, ‘water grabbing’ is being pinpointed. See Keulertz M, ‘The new politics of virtual water in East Africa’. Presentation for the ‘Land Deal Politics Initiative’ International Conference on Global Land Grabbing, PDI Sussex paper, 2011; Allan T, Keulertz M, Sojamo S & J Warner (eds), Handbook of Land and Water Grabs in Africa. London: Routledge, 2013.

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71. To ensure so-called responsible agricultural investments, a ‘code of conduct’ has been proposed by the World Bank and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) (2010). More recently, the FAO proposed the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land (2012).

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